After that license period expires, they're no longer allowed to sell the game, unless they negociate again a new license agreement with whoever owns that IP now, which is often too much of a headache, and if they do renew it, it means a new release of the game for extra money to offset the new licensing costs.
Emulation works around that since it relies on users who already bought the content from when the license was still in effect, but again, it's and effort from Microsoft to provide the emulation environment which is something the likes of Nintendo and Sony abandoned, since it brings little revenue for the extra costs.
It's a lot more complex issue than just "all game devs = evil".
Too bad, maybe they should've thought of that before signing those contracts.
> they're no longer allowed to sell the game
The subdiscussion isn't even about sales, but about not breaking existing copies.
Think about what exactly? Nobody's gonna afford to spend money to buy perpetual licenses for a games that will be on shelves only a few years. What exactly do you expect they do better?
>The subdiscussion isn't even about sales, but about not breaking existing copies.
Nobody's breaking existing copies.